Page:More songs by the fighting men, soldier poets, second series, 1917.djvu/146

More Songs by the Fighting Men The Wayside Burial

HEY'RE bringing in their recent dead—their recent dead!

I see the shoulder badge: a "Southern crush."

How small he looks—(O damn that singing thrush!)

Not give foot five from boots to battered head! . ..

Give him a kindly burial, my friends,—

So much is due, when some such loyal life ends!

"For Country!" . . . Ay, and so our brave do die:

Comrade unknown, good rest to you!—Good-bye!

They're bringing their recent dead! No pomp, no show:

A dingy khaki crowd—his friends, his own.

I, too, would like—(God, how that wind does moan!)—

To be laid down by friends: it's sweetest so!

A young life, as I take it; just a lad—

(How cold it blows; and that grey sky, how sad!)—

And yet: "For Country"—so a man should die:

Comrade unknown, good rest to you!—Good-bye!

They're burying their dead!—I wonder now:

A wife?—or mother? Mother it must be—

In some trim home that fronts the English sea.

(A sea-coast country: that the badges show.) 142